Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

April 15, 1920. Washington, D.C. "Tree planting." View full size. I looked high and low for a good CCC photo in honor of Earth Day, but they were all disappointingly low-res. So it's a National Photo glass negative to the rescue.

December 1941. White Motor Company, Cleveland. "The chassis of an Army halftrack scout car get a workout. When this test driver at a large Midwest plant has put the machine through its paces, he'll know if it meets the exacting specifications of the Army." View full size. 4x5 negative by Alfred Palmer.

October 1911. South Framingham, Massachusetts. Joseph Frank Nugent, 22 Howard Street, works in Department 8A of Dennison Factory; makes paper boxes. "I nip the covers." "One year there, 'bout time for a raise." View full size. Photo and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. This reminds me of a painting by Magritte.

December 1941. Goodrich plant at Akron, Ohio. "Rubber stock for track treads of scout cars and other Army halftrack vehicles is milled in one Ohio tire plant. All rubber firmly 'welded' to the steel parts is formed into one tough durable piece." View full size. 4x5 negative by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.